Scythe

Paintball with a purpose. That was the theme for the 6th Annual Purple Event, hosted by the West Michigan Cyber Security Consortium (WMCSC) on October 10th at the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology (WMCAT) facility. A purple-team cyber competition is unique in that it consists of teams made up of five offensive (red) and five defensive (blue) security professionals. They work together and share skills and knowledge in order to exploit, control, and secure assets within the live fire virtual cyber city, Alphaville.

With the news that ransomware attacks are on the decline, in favor of crypto-mining (aka “crypto-jacking”), it is tempting to now reshuffle your enterprise’s defensive priorities based on the adversary trends. But before you retask your Blue Team to focus on researching cryptocurrency miners, let’s take a moment and remember a few key fundamental facts about ransomware, and how it is still different, and more dangerous, from its money-mining “successor”.

When I started GRIMM, I had a vision to tackle the greatest cybersecurity challenges that face our clients, industry and the greater business and government communities. Two and a half years ago, one of those challenges was brought to the company because of our reputation. A Fortune 50 company had been breached and suffered significant damages. As a result, the IT Security team was given a significantly increased budget which they used to hire incredible talent and have their choice of any assessment/penetration testing software available.

Earlier today we announced that we raised $3 million in an initial funding round led by the co-founder of Tenable, Ron Gula of Gula Tech Adventures.
This investment will help accelerate our ability to deliver our attack simulation platform and drive new product development. We’ve planned a roadmap of new features and innovations that will disrupt the cybersecurity industry.
We’re providing organizations the ability to get ahead of threats with real metrics and tangible examples of attacks and compromises.

August is right around the corner, our favorite time of the year - Black Hat and DEF CON! SCYTHE is gearing up for a great week in Las Vegas - and we’re especially excited because this is our first official hacker summer camp since officially launching the company last October. Here’s a bit of what we’ll be up to!
SCYTHE will make it’s official debut on Wednesday, August 8 and Thursday, August 9 at the Black Hat Innovation City.

Whew. Who’s still recovering from RSAC 2018? GRIMM has been making appearances at the annual conference since launching in 2012. However, this was the inaugural visit for SCYTHE, GRIMM’s sister product company which launched last October, and the ICS Village, a non-profit the GRIMM and SCYTHE leadership helped launch this spring. And what a splash it was! In case you missed it, we were busy! Here’s a recap:

The void in the cybersecurity workforce is compounding the level of risk faced by enterprises. The global shortage of skilled security workers could reach 1.8 million in the next five years according to the Center for Cyber Safety and Education. Contrast this with plans to boost security teams hiring by at least 15 percent in the same time frame - the numbers don’t add up. This is exacerbated by the increasing volume, variety and veracity of widespread cyberattacks like WannaCry, NotPetya, Locky, and other blockbuster ransomware.

When I started GRIMM, I had a vision to tackle the greatest cybersecurity challenges that face our clients, industry and the greater business and government communities. Five years later, we have grown into a dynamic and passionate team who strives to make a better, more secure world through the independent research and the services we provide to clients.
GRIMM takes deep pride in its dedication to education, innovation and technical problem solving.